Greg Vs Raid 9-21 – Predator & Prey

Drywall dust and stale coffee coated the air of the PRT ENE HQ like a thick perfume; the smell of both hitting your tongue the second you stepped inside and took a breath.

Heavy and gritty, the taste of it somehow managed to crawl down the back of your throat after a few minutes and stayed there all day. As bad as it was those first few minutes of the day, it was also something you almost forgot until you had the taste of something else in there. Given that it had been around for the last two weeks, Taylor was pretty sure everyone in the building had gotten used to it quickly enough.

After all, when half the east wing was still missing a wall from Leviathan’s tidal wave redecoration and construction was going on nonstop, you learned not to complain about the little things.

Speaking of the little things…

Taylor Anne Hebert did her best to keep her face calm and her mouth flat as she sat in the plastic chair, the material harder and flatter than a park bench; it was bad enough to make her wonder why someone would ever buy furniture like this.

No matter what, though, she didn’t fidget.

Hands down at her sides, Taylor focused on the fly crawling three feet and to the left above the Director’s head. Musca domestica; a common housefly, rubbing its front legs together slowly and carefully on the institutionally off-white wall.

There were others, of course. It didn’t matter if it was a building in the heart of a major city, or a one-room house in the middle of nowhere; tiny things with too many legs were everywhere all the time. 

Spiders in the vents, rebuilding wet webs. Ants moving around inside the drywall, busy repairing the tunnels collapsed by the stress of two weeks back. German cockroaches… too many of them.

They were loud.

So loud.

Not like actual sound, but more pressure in the back of her skull that she couldn’t turn off, only turn down.

Director Piggot didn’t look up at her, the woman a boulder behind her desk as she continued reading the same file that had been in front of her for the last few minutes. Piggot was always like this, Taylor had realized quickly. Even the times when she was technically on the backfoot, she always did everything she could to make you feel like you were the one in trouble; making you wait, staring without talking, being as still as possible.

Like a principal with more powe- “Lady Bug.”

Taylor blinked up as Piggot finally spoke, blinking past the corrective lenses in her red domino mask. That name…

It still felt weird.

More than a little silly, honestly.

Which was even sillier, considering it was her choice to stick with it.

That was kinda the point, too, from what Glenn had talked over with her. You put on the cute little red mask, wear the pretty skirt with the black polka dots, carry the purse and people forget you’re the scary girl that can give them entirely new and complicated phobias. It was a good idea, honestly; the whole magical girl camouflage.

She just wished it wasn’t all wrapped around… him.

“Director.” Taylor’s voice came out softer than she meant it to, her hands going from her sides to folding themselves in her lap. After almost five minutes of waiting, she was beginning to think the woman would never ‘finish’ whatever she was pretending to read.

Piggot flipped a page, the sound sharp as she placed both palms flat on her desk. “We have a situation.”

Taylor took a breath, once again thankful for the costuming department. Her double-breasted leather coat might have been a bright enough red that the thing was almost neon, but it made up for it by not being tight or spandex-like. Vista might have rolled her eyes a bit at it, but the whole of her wardrobe as Lady Bug was more an outfit than a costume. “…situation?”

“It’s an issue of a containment breach.” Flinty eyes stared Taylor’s way. On anybody else, she would have called it a glare but the overweight PRT Director was just like that, unfortunately. She’d wondered how the Protectorate heroes could get used to Armsmaster leading them, but compared to Piggot, the robotic Tinker was a walk in the park honestly. “Structural failure from the Endbringer attack extended further than initial assessments indicated, all the way down to the sub-basements.” 

The teenage girl blinked. No…

“Three days ago,” Piggot let out a sigh heavy enough for her to feel, “we lost power to a few of the electronic locking mechanisms in Sector Four for approximately twelve minutes.”

Sector Four.

She knew who was in Sector Four.

Or.

Who was in Sector Four.

“She’s gone.” The whispered words weren’t at all a question. “You’re saying that she’s gone.”

“I’m informing you, as an affected party,” Piggot didn’t blink. “Of the fact that Sophia Marie Hess is no longer in custody of the PRT.”

The fly on the ceiling stopped cleaning its legs, spiders no longer spinning webs as the ants in the wall froze. Sophia.

Not Shadow Stalker. Sophia. 

Because the PRT had already done their part in scrubbing Shadow Stalker from their branding with barely anyone noticing. With Bakuda and the gang wars and then Leviathan, it wasn’t even hard at all. There was no more profile of the edgy crossbow-user on the ENE Wards store; just broken links and old press pages shoved down to nowhere.

Hell, they’d cropped the team photos on any public post, which was easy because Shadow Stalker was always on the side anyway. 

No announcement to the public, just absence. 

Taylor’s fingers tightened on her skirt, the durable kevlar weave disguised as pleats and simple layers; all of it too tough to tear no matter how she tugged at it. “How?” Insects and arachnids started moving again, Taylor forcing them back to normal as she eased herself back into her own head like Dr. Yamada had taught her. 

‘Externalizing your problems with your power seems like an easy way to handle them, Taylor. At least until you realize that you’re not actually handling them.

“H-how?” Taylor echoed, voice less steady than she’d like as she opened her mouth again. “I thought… the…system… backups?”

“The backup generators were delayed, unfortunately.” Piggot closed the folder with a tight exhale. “By the time we were able to access the manual override for her doors, the holding cell was empty.”

Empty. Leave it to Sophia to slip through the cracks. Powers or not, it’s like the bully just  phased through consequences. “She has nothing, like at all, I-I…” Taylor took a breath, the words stacking high and falling their way out of her mouth. “I mean… no gear, no money, nothing. She can’t… she has nowhere to go, right?”

Piggot nodded. “Her mother’s house is under surveillance.”

“Then where?”

“That is what we are trying to determine. With three days of freedom, it’s a harder task than you’d assume given the city’s condition.” The Director leaned back, the chair beneath her protesting the shift with a groan. “However, there is a complication. Given Ms. Hess’s psychological profile, her criminal history, and the specific nature of her apprehension…”

Piggot raised an eyebrow, not having to finish the obvious.

Because I caught her. It was something none of her team had let her forget yet; not the way she’d thrown a swarm at Sophia and then slammed her headfirst into a wall. “She’ll come for me.”

Piggot nodded. “Retribution is… expected.”

“At school?”

“We are arranging a leave of absence from Arcadia. For your safety. And the safety of the student body.”

Safety, right. Taylor looked at the window behind Piggot, the reinforced glass displaying so much churning water as rain fell outside. “I can defend myself.”

“You are a Ward, a representative of the Parahuman Response Team,” Piggot cut in, her voice as low as Taylor had ever heard it. “You are not a vigilante. If she engages, you call it in. You contain.”

“I know.”

“Do you, really?” The director narrowed blue eyes at her. “Because you nearly suffocated Sophia.”

Taylor met those blues, unflinching behind her polka-dot mask. “Nearly.”

Piggot held the stare for a second longer, before letting out a sound that was either a snort or a grunt. “If you say so. Still, retaliation is a possibility, if an unlikely one. While the tracker and most of its functionality was damaged when she escaped her cell, Hess still has on an inhibitor cuff. The lab isn’t sure if it’s firing randomly or constantly but either way, she won’t be phasing cleanly.”

Cleanly…“So she’s wounded?”

The question was met with more silence, Piggot staring at her with flat eyes that managed to hold all the force of a glare. “Desperate animals bite, Hebert. Remember that.”

…so she’s wounded.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The grocery store was dead.

Not closed, dead.

A third layer of plywood had been hammered in over smashed up windows, the ground outside the store covered with the first two. Torn off and left there by whoever the fuck, it was clear the owner barely gave two shits about it at this point. Prolly fresh off that EB insurance.

It made sense, though.

Why stay back and rebuild when you could cash out and go somewhere the fuck else? She’d have done the same too, no point in looking back on a shithole like this. Sophia’s lips curled as she took her first full step into said shithole, the sight of flickering fluorescents above her head enough to make her blink. Huh…

Okay, maybe it was less dead than she thought.

She took another step forward, only to flinch a split second later — something cracking loud under the soles of her New Balances. Sophia glanced down, only to scoff at the sight of a red “OPEN” sign scattered to pieces, the thing dusted with broken glass and rat droppings.

Shaking her head, the girl focused her attention back on the store she’d just snuck into.

Dim as it was, with the half-working lights, the smell was what made her freeze up for the second time in a heartbeat. Fuu- Mouth open, all she could do was hiss at the smell of meat that had gone bad weeks ago and milk that was more cheese at this point than anything else.

…fuck me. But she didn’t have much choice anyway. Not a fuckin’ dumpster diver.

Not again, at least.

No, once was bad enough.

A grunt spilled out of her lips as she dragged one leg behind her, the metal cuff around her ankle making every step feel like she was moving uphill. Fuckin… If it was heavy, that’d be one thing but the shitty tech was nothing like that. Nah, it just made her leg feel like dead weight; everything from her ankle down completely numb. “C’mon. Move, you useless…”

Pain — white hot — shot up her leg, Sophia tasting blood as she stumbled and slammed her shoulder into a shelf. F… fu… Canned beans came tumbling down all around her, each impact of aluminum on tile too loud in the silence, dust raining down with it. Fuck.

“Fuck!” She gripped the shelf, knuckles white as she echoed her thoughts, dark skin looking grey in the shadows.

Don’t… don’t be a pussy. She breathed in hard as each word passed through her mind on repeat, chest heaving with each In-Out. Sophia Hess was no pussy, and a fuckin’ ankle bracelet wasn’t gonna make her bitch out. Don’t be a pussy.

In. Out.

“Weak,” Blood slid past her tongue as it pushed past her lips, drops hitting the floor one after another. “Weak.”

She looked down at the cuff, the stained white-gray thing sparking all over as little bits of electricity jumped from the casing. I’m gonna shoot Chris in the fucking kneecap. That little shit was definitely the one that built this thing; Armsmaster’s wouldn’t be fucking up like this. Right in the fucking knee.

Sophia shook her head, teeth gritted as she reached for a can of… peaches? She pulled a face, tossing the shit over her shoulder. Not even. Stomach cramping, and her gut eating her from the inside out, she still wasn’t gonna touch fuckin’ peaches.

She reached out again, eyes narrowed as she tried to blink past the flickering lights. 

“Hey!” The sound of footsteps came out of nowhere, Sophia flinching as a beam of light cut the darkness. “Who’s back there?”

Her hand went up, heavy boots and jingling keys telling her everything she needed to know; even more than what she could see. Rent-a-cop. More than that, probably some fat slob making minimum wage to guard a store that had nothing left to steal but expired fruit.

The light hit her again, Sophia snarling back as her heartbeat spiked. 

“The fuck!”

“Walk away, Paul Blart.” Her hand closed around another can, peaches useful for fuckin’ something. “You don’t want this.”

“H-hands!” The guard tried to put some bass in his voice but he couldn’t hide the shake in the words. “Sh-show me your g’damn! Hands!” 

One hand held a flashlight. The other… something else..

“I said hands where I can see ’em!”

She needed to phase.

Do it. Force it.

Sophia grit her teeth and — BZZZZZ-POP.

And screamed as the cuff exploded.

An arc wrapped around her calf, burning, searing through the muscle until she felt like it was cooked right through the bone.

“I-is that a bomb? Panic cracked his voice harder, the flashlight going crazy.

“No!”

The guard flinched.

A flash.

Heat.

Sophia tasted blood again.